THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 30, 2015 49
He has denied wrongdoing and has not
been charged. The Bush campaign, in
a slide presentation to donors, has cited
the friendship with the "scandal-tarred"
Rivera as evidence that Rubio is a "risky
bet." Rubio aides tell reporters that the
candidate rarely sees Rivera anymore,
but Rivera and Arza were among Ru-
bio's supporters at the Republican de-
bate in Cleveland.
Rubio has struggled to manage his
personal and professional finances. On
several occasions, he used a Republican
Party American Express card to charge
personal expenses---$3,765 for land-
scaping stones at his house, ten thousand
dollars for a family reunion in Georgia,
a hundred and thirty-four dollars in a
hair salon. In each case, he made good
on the charge before it was publicly re-
ported and explained it as a mixup. A
state ethics commission investigated the
incidents and cleared him, but that hasn't
stopped his opponents from bringing
them up.
His income has fluctuated dramati-
cally. In 2000, his first year in the leg-
islature, he was still saddled with stu-
dent debt. As he ascended in the House
leadership, he was hired by Broad &
Cassel, a prominent law and lobbying
firm, and his annual income grew to
more than four hundred thousand dol-
lars. In 2012, he received a contract for
his memoir, worth at least eight hun-
dred thousand dollars, and yet, even with
his rising income, he cashed out sixty-
eight thousand dollars from a retirement
account, paying a heavy tax penalty.
When reporters asked about it, he said,
"My refrigerator broke down." Political
rivals wondered if he had a gambling
problem, and searched for evidence but
found none. Indeed, Rubio has incor-
porated the questions about his finan-
cial dealings into his self-narrative.
"Here's the truth," he said, flanked by
prosperous rivals, during the third Re-
publican debate, in Boulder, Colorado.
"I didn't inherit any money." He added,
"But I'm not worried about my finances.
I'm worried about the finances of every-
day Americans."
After Rubio finished at the Elks
Lodge in Boulder City, he drove
to North Las Vegas, a blue-collar sub-
urb where he and his family once lived
in a two-bedroom cinder-block house.
The city has a large Hispanic popula-
tion, and bus shelters advertise lawyers
who specialize in inmigración. He was
scheduled to speak at an event orga-
nized by the LIBRE Initiative, a non-
profit group funded in part by the Koch
brothers.The logo on the backdrop de-
clared, "Limited Government, Unlim-
ited Opportunities."
To fulfill Reagan's prophesy that
Latino voters will become Republicans,
the Party will need to make its eco-
nomic case in places like Nevada. Be-
tween 1994 and 2012, the Latino share
of Nevada's electorate tripled, from five
per cent to fifteen per cent. So far, Lati-
nos have been voting mainly for Dem-
ocrats. Senator Harry Reid won a tight
reëlection fight in 2010 largely because
he received ninety-four per cent of the
Latino vote. By the end of this decade,
non-Hispanic whites will likely be a
minority in Nevada.
The event was held at St. Christo-
pher Catholic School, which Rubio at-
tended briefly as a child. (After lobby-
ing his parents to find a way to cover the
tuition, he arrived to find that he hated
the uniforms, the extra schoolwork, and
the distance from his friends, and he
pleaded to go back to public school. "I
made life unbearable in our house, and
within a week, my parents had relented,"
he writes. "I cringe today when I remem-
ber how selfishly I behaved.")
Drawing on the ideas of reform-
minded conservatives, Rubio told the
audience, "We have government poli-
cies that, quite frankly, have not allowed
this economy to grow fast enough and
create better-paying jobs." He went on,
"These are the impediments to upward
mobility: an economy that isn't creat-
ing better-paying jobs and a higher-
education system that's too expensive
or inaccessible. And the result is we are
leaving people behind."
The crux of Rubio's economic argu-
ment is that the poor and the middle
class are facing di erent problems from
those his parents faced. He opposes rais-
ing the minimum wage, arguing that it
will lead to automation and outsourc-
ing. He wants a greater share of young
people to consider trade schools and ap-
prenticeships instead of incurring the
debts of a four-year education. "You're
going to have eighteen-year-olds in this
country making fifty thousand dollars
a year making cars, making seventy
thousand dollars a year as a welder!"
he says. (His rhapsodies about welding
have been ridiculed, because the Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics reports that the
median wage for welders is less than
thirty-eight thousand dollars.)
Rubio told the audience that the no-
tion that "big government is good for
the people who are trying to make it"
is a "lie." He said, "When the govern-
ment dominates the economy, the peo-
ple that can a ord to influence the gov-
ernment---they win. And everybody else
is stuck." He went on, "They know that
you can't start a business out of the spare
bedroom of your home if you have to
fill out fifteen permits and hire lawyers
and lobbyists, and they love it because
that means they have no competition."
At one point while Rubio was in the
Florida House, he and David Ri-
vera visited Washington and got in touch
with Mel Martínez, who was then in
the Senate. "I walked him around the
Capitol, and he was like a kid with his
eyes popping out, you know? 'Oh, my
gosh, this is so cool. Oh, my gosh,' "
Martínez recalled. Within a few years,
Rubio was back, with a purpose. "I in-
vited him to lunch in the Senate din-
ing room, and I got the definite impres-
sion that he was kind of fishing around
as to if I was going to run for reëlection
or not," Martínez said. "I thought it was
a bit premature to be talking about that."
After term limits forced Rubio out
of the Florida House, in 2008, he worked
as a consultant for hospitals, a television
pundit, and a college instructor, but
by 2009 he was antsy. Martínez had
announced his retirement, and Rubio
wanted to challenge Charlie Crist, the
former Republican governor, for the va-
cant Senate seat, but Party leaders had
chosen Crist, and they told Rubio that
they would oppose him with money and
endorsements. Rubio's friend Dennis
Baxley received a text message from
him: "I can't quit thinking about U.S.
Senate. They want me to do Attorney
General of Florida instead, but what
do you think?" Baxley said, "I texted
him back. I said, 'What does your wife
think?' She's the spiritual depth gauge."
Jeanette approved.
Rubio began more than thirty points
behind, and almost dropped out. But